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-------- Original Message -------- Subject: NO PLACE TO MEET: RE: PACIFIC PARK: Aug and Sept Mtg Dates Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2023 21:20:31 -0400 From: "Sandra Pocha Pena" < To: bvazquez@santa-ana.org, kridge@santa-ana.org, dsoto@santa-ana.org Cc: vanevee@ymail. vpayan@alumni. mmacedonio@santa-ana.org, rhernandez5@santa-ana.org, tpagano@santa-ana.org Dear Councilmember Vazquez and City Management, As I mentioned during Public Comments at last night's July 18 City Council Meeting, our only public meeting space at the Roosevelt/Walker Community Center is not accessible for our Pacific Park Neighborhood Committee Meetings. For details, refer to Rudy's email forwarded below. This is a major Barrier to Participation for our residents. How are we to organize effectively if we don't have a public place to meet? Most of Pacific Park Neighborhood is working-class and live in crowded conditions. Pacific Park does not have the expansive homes of Wilshire Square or Floral Park to convene our meetings in. Our members don't golf or recreate together. That's why we are nurturing these neighborhood committees as a means to build community and foster local resident leadership. ** Even more disturbing is that HIES appears to have declared that our Pacific Park Neighborhood Committees are NOT a part of our Pacific Park Neighborhood Association and thus do not qualify for free use of our neighborhood community center. Can you look into this? ** These are the Pacific Park Committees that have been convening June & July: -- Youth Committee - To engage Pacific Park youth and build leadership -- Events Committee -To help residents plan a neighborhood resource fair on Sept 23 And to address the transition of leadership that Staff is demanding, we have created a new committee to start in August: -- Leadership Committee -To draft bylaws and build the bench of potential Pacific Park Leaders As you may know, we have no commercial corridors or strip malls in Pacific Park, except for the crime -infested Dollar Tree on the corner of Bishop & Cypress. It appears that Staff is deliberately targeting Pacific Park Neighborhood, to disempower our residents and block development of grassroots leadership. We don't even have a church within our neighborhood to turn to for space.